Flowers

WHITE AVENS

(Geum Canadense; G. album of Gray) Rose family
Flowers - White or pale greenish yellow, about 1/2 in. across,
loosely scattered in small clusters on slender peduncles. Calyx
persistent, 5-cleft, with little bracts between the reflexed
divisions; 5 petals, equaling or shorter than

the sepals; stamens
and carpels numerous, the latter collected on a short,
bristly-hairy receptacle; styles smooth below, hairy above,
jointed. Stem: 2 1/2 ft. high or less, slender, branching above.
Leaves: Seated on stem or short petioled, of 3 to 5 divisions, or
lobed, toothed small stipules; also irregularly divided large
root-leaves on long petioles, 3-foliate, usually the terminal
leaflet large, broadly ovate side leaflets much smaller, all more
or less lobed and toothed. Fruit: A ball of achenes, each ending
in an elongated, hooked style.
Preferred Habitat - Woodland borders, shady thickets and
roadsides.
Flowering Season - June-September.
Distribution - Nova Scotia to Georgia, west to the Mississippi or
beyond.
Small bees and flies attracted to sheltered, shady places by
these loosely scattered flowers at the ends of zig-zagged stems,
pay for the nectar they sip from the disk where the stamens are
inserted, by carrying some of the pollen lunch on their heads
from the older to the younger flowers, which mature stigmas
first. But saucy bumblebees, undutiful pilferers from the purple
avens, rarely visit blossoms so inconspicuous. Insects failing
these, they are well adapted to pollenize themselves. Most of us
are all too familiar with the seeds, clinging by barbed styles to
any garment passing their way, in the hope that their stolen ride
will eventually land them in good colonizing ground. Whoever
spends an hour patiently picking off the various seed tramps from
his clothes after a walk through the woods and fields in autumn,
realizes that the by hook or by crook method of scattering
offspring is one of Nature's favorites. Simpler plants than those
with hooked achenia produce enormous numbers of spores so light
and tiny that the wind and rain distribute them wholesale.

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